


Cycles

by saturnsage



Category: Calling of Metem's Hollow
Genre: Other
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2019-03-11
Updated: 2019-03-11
Packaged: 2019-11-15 14:23:20
Rating: General Audiences
Warnings: No Archive Warnings Apply
Chapters: 1
Words: 1,454
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/18075080
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/saturnsage/pseuds/saturnsage
Summary: You sigh, thinking of how lucky you are that the night gave you this family. “You two,” you sing, loving and loved in return, “are my lungs.”





	Cycles

**Author's Note:**

> im in kahoots with that big wolf man and id stab someone's eye for my brother and sister u_u

And in the beginning, you are both alive, and the tree weeps ash.   
  
“ _YOU CANNOT END ME,”_ She screams with fire and hearth, with ice and freeze.  Even the roots shake with the fury in her voice, the yearning, for never has a woman existed who did not yearn. “ _FOR I WILL ALWAYS RETURN. I WILL ALWAYS STARVE, I WILL ALWAYS HUNGER, AND IT WILL ALL BE BECAUSE OF YOU.”  
_

Donni stabs his spear into the ground, and a small trickle of blood spittles from his mouth to his chin. His skin is too dark to bruise, but you are sure it is aching nonetheless. “Be at peace, Elysia.” He growls, leaning heavy into his spear. “This will never be a place for you.” 

His eyes glow weary. How many times has he done this? Fought barehanded and raw-fanged against a yearning woman, man constantly pushing woman down?   
  
He is careful not to let the wounds of his torso and limbs drip over the ash of the willow. That would be her consolation prize, and he is too cautious to let her grab what she can get.   
  
It was harder, this time. You can tell. How straight-backed he is, it is answer enough for the fatigue he must feel. Her miasma has dug deeper into his core than he would have usually permitted, and her form had tried to steal his own blood in a desperate attempt for an unfair match. How much blood you spill on the battlefield is always an indicator of who is winning. 

Elysia howls, and the moon doesn’t answer her. You do not feel like answering her as well. The night-father sings a sorry lullaby for her to sleep, and finally, she rests. One blackened willow tree in the middle of a charred ring.   
  
“Will we have to do this again?” You ask. Your hands shake, and claw marks are visible on the torn skin of you arms. Your own blood oozes, and you haphazardly thrown furs on them to keep it from spilling. Your feet ache, your back is sore. Mostly, though, your mind is wrung out, hearing nothing but the forest, the forest with her dear, burnt heart, and the cry of the hollow. You hear nothing but your deep breaths, and Donni’s pants.   
  
He grunts in exertion, lifting his weight from off the spear to speak. His moon hair falls limp on his face. “I need to do this as many times as it takes.” He spits out the rest of the blood into the unmarked ground, before golden eyes turn to you, and reaches out a loose fist to gently brush your cheeks with his knuckles. “As for you, free lover, let yourself rest. This isn’t your war.”

It was always one of his fears. To see you stand with him as an equal against her, to fight hand in hand. It was always one of his fears to see you as a partner.   
  
“It was mine as soon as her teeth scalped into my dreams,” You reply tartly, leaning your mouth into his hand, making it known that he will see you on the same footing. “It became mine as soon as your bite punctured my neck and my wrists.”   
  
You had bitten each other’s necks on a moonless night. You had bit each other’s wrists on a full moon, because a scar is more permanent than a promise.   
  
“I should regret it,” He whispers, leaning into your face, so the weeping tree in front of both of you does not hear, “I should regret dragging you here. Into this mess.”   
  
You move so close that your forehead leans into his, and that both your breaths are shared. Because it is his biggest regret. A giant black wolf with golden eyes slashing against something that cannot lose. A giant black wolf who fears love, who fears night, who fears much and nothing at all.   
  
“Wild hearted,” You whisper back, “It is strange of you to assume that I will allow anyone to drag me.”   
  
You are strong. You are part of this woods. You are part of this home.  
  
He kisses you softly, as soft as fallen snow, as soft as his wolf-fur, as soft as candle-light, and you return it just as strongly.   
  
And in the beginning, you are both alive, and the tree weeps ash.  
  
___

  
And in the middle, you three are alive, and the sky is so blue it purples your sights.   
  
“Do you remember a young gangly boy,” Pan asks, twining his hands into yours, “who constantly had thorns and bristles in his thumbs instead of papercuts?”  
  
It is a game you three play. It is to help you remind each other of how you have grown, of how you will grow, and how you are growing.  Resting on the tender hills with the feather-light green grass of the hollow, all three of you, werewolf and human alike, linked and tangled in both bodies and lives stare at the open sky. The songbirds croon low and sweet, and the breeze plays brightly against all of your cheeks. The leaves dance along with the wind, and a falcon flies against the sapphire of the sky.   
  
It is always easy, this easy to be cracked open and loved so. This, your people, your home, this: your family.   
  
“I remember him,” Lysandra chuckles into Pan’s black hair. “Oh, how I couldn’t stand him! His cheeks were far too round for my liking!”   
  
Ten years ago was when you were all so young. So much has changed, and yet nothing has changed at all. This is home. This is your family.   
  
“I remember a young fearsome girl,” You reply, staring at the clouds soaring high, “who filed her own claws before she knew what they looked like. I remember her howling before she knew how to cry.”  
  
And what potential you three hold, and held, and are holding! And what potential is in this forest, that blooms and dies and burns and grows! And what love is hidden and shown!   
  
This is what you protect. This is what you carry in the chambers of your heart. This is what you and Donni fight for.  
  
Pan snorts. “I remember her as well. Oh, how I adored her! Her teeth were so sharp!” His round demeanor rivals the spring. You love him kindly for it.  
  
Lysandra cackles, wild and free, and kisses the tip of your nose. “You two,” She says, “Are my eyes.”   
  
Because without you and Pan, her claws would have grown too dangerous and her fur too tangled, and she would have been wild, and trapped.  
  
Her sharp edges rivals the cliffsides. You love her fiercely for it.   
  
Pan giggles. “You two,” He banters, “Are my hands.”

Because without you and Lysandra, he would have been stuck in place, forgetting how to act, how to speak for himself.   
  
You sigh, thinking of how lucky you are that the night gave you this  _family_. “You two,” you sing, loving and loved in return, “are my lungs.”   
  
Because without the two of them, you would not have existed as you.

____  
  
And in the end, you are alone, and the willow tree you face feels so lonely.  
  
“ _YOU CANNOT END ME_ ,” The ash traces it’s words beneath your feet, and it tastes under your tongue as well. The bite of winter holds as an after-taste, and you swallow it in partly in spite. “ _FOR THERE WILL NEVER BE AN END TO THIRST.”  
  
_ Elysia, as old as she is young. Blood has made her feral, and now her howls chill you to the bone.   
  
You step closer to the tree, careful of the roots, and of the soots. Cautious, cautious, you place one hand on the bark, and the tree which holds her screams louder.   
  
“Be at peace, Elysia.” You offer, the warm words pulsing into the tree. “There will be a place for you, if you let me help you grow.”  
  
“ _GROW STARVING, YES.”_ She croons. “ _GROW STRONGER, YES.”  
  
_ “That is not what I meant.” You whisper, soothing.   
  
 _“THEN COME BACK WHEN YOUR WORDS ARE NOT SO LOUD, SO FRAIL. FOOL! FOOL!”_  
  
Elysia, woman trapped in the corpse of a tree. Old as she is young. Her power resides in the lives of others, and although that is a scary thought, is that not like everyone else?   
  
Even the roots shake with the fury in her voice, the yearning, for never has a woman existed who did not yearn.  
  
You will come back. Tomorrow, and the day after, until her edges have become dull, and until her eyes open, and she needs not keep her anger in her chest, but rather let it die.


End file.
